Is premium DNS worth paying for?
The short answer
For most small business websites, no. The free DNS from your registrar, host or a service like Cloudflare is fast and reliable. And if your domain’s nameservers point somewhere else, a registrar’s premium DNS add-on isn’t being used at all, so it can be cancelled.
DNS is the address book that sends visitors to your website and email to your mail provider. Only the DNS service your nameservers point to is used. Registrars sometimes keep charging for a premium DNS add-on after the nameservers have been moved to another company, such as your host or Cloudflare.
Step-by-step example: stop paying for Namecheap PremiumDNS.
Words used here
- Unused DNS add-on
- You pay your registrar for premium DNS, but your domain’s traffic is handled by another company — so the add-on isn’t being used.
- Nameservers
- A setting on your domain that says which company runs its DNS. For example, ns1.hover.com means Hover is in charge of your traffic settings.
- DNS (the traffic controller)
- The internet’s address book: it tells a browser which computer to visit when someone types your domain.
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